Eyes turned to the sky this evening around 6.20pm to see with the naked eye and greet one last time the European Ers-2 satellite in free fall to Earth, before re-entry into the atmosphere scheduled for Wednesday 21 February.
The European Space Agency communicates this with a post on the X platform, in which it publishes the maps with the trajectory that the satellite will follow this evening as it flies over the skies of central Europe and Italy, from south to north.
"The satellite flies over Europe every day several times a day, but is visible to the naked eye only in the twilight period, when the observer is in the dark, because the Sun has already sunk below the horizon and the satellite is high enough to be still illuminated by its rays", Luciano Anselmo, expert in spatial dynamics and research associate at the Institute of Information Science and Technologies 'A.', told ANSA.
Faedo' of the Cnr (Isti-Cnr).
According to the latest updated forecasts from ESA, re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere is scheduled for February 21st at 9.53pm (Italian time), "but what matters is not so much this nominal reference time - underlines Anselmo - but rather the window of uncertainty which still remains very large, equal to almost eight hours, due to the possible variations in solar activity which influence the resistance encountered by the satellite".
It is difficult to predict where in the world any debris that will not burn completely in the atmosphere could fall.
"All continents are potentially affected," adds the expert.
"The probability that the fragments will fall into the oceans is about 55%."
Italy, at the moment, seems to be safe.
"If the uncertainty window is confirmed, we know that Ers-2 passages over our territory are not expected in that period of time", concludes Anselmo.
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